2017 was seen in with me being single, for the first time in a long time. Aside from plenty of time and motivation to get back to the gym, one positive is that I can now embark on the Tinder journey I’ve always dreamed of! I’ve played on a friends Tinder account before, choosing attractive women that seemed nice (much to his dismay, he liked to pick them based on the size of their chest alone…) and it was so much fun! As a woman interested in men, I strangely find it so much easier to see attractive traits in other women. That could be because of my job photographing women or maybe I am just way too picky when it comes to men because when you are Tindering for yourself, it’s a very different story.

Within minutes of downloading Tinder, I was questioning whether I should throw myself or my phone out of the window. You might think you hate everyone already but unless you’ve been on Tinder (and let’s face it, worse if you’re a woman) you won’t know the half of it. The problem isn’t even just the absolutely abysmal and depressing selection of men on there, the problem is also very much me. I am apparently way more shallow than I thought I was and way more irritated by the smallest things. Seriously, though, who uses two full stops!? What does that mean.. nothing.. it’s an ellipsis or a period, you don’t get to use TWO. That’s just not a thing.

In regards to my own fussiness, I’ve had a few cases of the guilts. How many left swipes can I commit to before I become an asshole? I’ve had to extend my ‘reach’ now and still I found myself only swiping right very occasionally because ‘they don’t seem THAT bad’ or people that were physically attractive but didn’t seem like my type and maybe they should be, simply because they are ‘typically’ attractive. Second-guessing my idea of what’s attractive as potentially wrong. Maybe I should try something different? Maybe I should accept older men into the search, or younger men, maybe my expectations need to be lowered a very considerable amount. I can see that Tinder is going to be a massive struggle for me but since you are all reading this as sadist bastards, maybe you will enjoy reading about all the horrific things I’ve yet to experience, the reasons I swipe left and the reasons I’ve very rarely swiped right.

When I think about my ex-boyfriends and imagine (I say imagine, one came up on my suggestions already…) their abstract faces before I got to know them, I really don’t think I would have ever swiped right. There’s just something about an abstract image of a man I don’t know that I just find impossible to be attracted to. I’m not attracted to celebrities, anything like that, it’s just not really how my mind functions. I’m the same with shopping and it’s why I don’t online shop, I like to walk around a few shops aimlessly and, if I like something, it will catch my eye and I will just ‘know’ and I think I expect my potential suitors to do the same. The odd time I have ever found myself attracted to a celebrity, it’s generally more the character portrayed in that series/film, nothing to do with the actor himself or his looks.